In the seventh episode of How to Write a Book, Elizabeth Day’s new podclass series, hosts Sara Collins, Sharmaine Lovegrove and Nelle Andrew take a slightly more structured approach to their discussion, having plotted out how best to talk about plot.

We open up with wise advice on plot mastery  from Nelle, who as a literary agent, has taught hundreds of writers about this tricky discipline. Where should you begin when it comes to structuring your ideas? How do plots vary across commercial and literary strands? Where does the snobbishness around “the plottiest of plots” come from? And why novels with an interior focus, or stream of consciousness writing, still need to be plotted.

Together, Sara, Sharmaine and Nelle are your on-hand writing community giving you the push you need to get started on that novel, memoir, or piece of non fiction you've always dreamed of writing. And because every great plot should have a cliffhanger, we’re doing part 2 of PLOT next week!

Books discussed in PLOT (part 1 and part 2) include:

•  Secret History by Donna Tart

•  Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

•  The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

•  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

•  Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

•  August Blue by Deborah Levy

We also talk about: Jonathan Coe, Cormac McCarthy, Sara Collins’ new novel, Ghost Story,  Succession, Thomas Hardy,  Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, Toni Morrison, Will Storr, Elizabeth Strout, classical music and hip-hop.

Executive produced by Elizabeth Day for Daylight Productions and Carly Maile for Sony Music Entertainment.

Produced by Imogen Serwotka.

Please do get in touch with us, your writing community, with thoughts, feedback and more at: [email protected]

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